Pythium's Magery

[Shovah32]

Teraswaerto said:
Angels of Wrath and Seraphim are more SC than thug material IMO, but I don't really have experience using either.

Seraphs are pretty much SC quality as soon as you summon them. Angels of wrath can go either way depending on blessing and equipment.

[Horst F. JENS]

What is your tactic against the old age problem with Pythium ? Even the lower Theurgs suffer from old age.
Is it wise to take a Growth scale ?
I like to have Nature on my Pretender and forge Lycantroph amulets...but that make the mages berserk and unable to cast battlefield spells. Do you guys go for contruction 6 and forge this water bottle that stop aging or do you just ignore old age ?

[Ironhawk]

I definitely dont take Death scales, thats for sure! Growth is nice but not required. Generally I just ignore old age. If a mage ever gets Diseased I just teleport him to the front lines to get some use out of him before he dies.

[Shovah32]

With pythium i always try to take good scales including good growth since pythiums real strength comes into play i mainly plan for then(+good scales means large, well supplied expansion armies) but i also try to get 4 nature on my pretender. The nature magic on the pretender not only helps with magic versatility but it also gives a minor regeneration bless that stops units taking damage from disease if you give them a shroud of the battlesaint(5 pearls and fairly low construction iirc). It also means you dont HAVE to give your angel thugs/SCs regeneration if your just using it to avoid the occasional affliction(if you expect them to take a fair amount of damage they need either more regeneration or a new build).

[MaxWilson]

Ironhawk said:
Thunderstrikes are not exhausting if you power them via a communion. Take your 3A arch-theurgs and give them just two communion slaves. This boosts them to 4A which cuts the fatigue for the spell to 25. Then, since you are communed, each member gets only 1/3rd of the fatigue so we are talking 8.333 fatigue per casting. Not exhausting at all. But I would like to re-iterate that in anything but the smallest maps, your Theurgs are really what should be your default combat mage.

Just wanted to note that spell fatigue gets split *before* adjusting for path costs. So that's 17 points to the theurg and both communion slaves. The theurg still takes 17/2 = 8 + encumbrance fatigue because he's A4, and the slaves take 17*3 + fatigue because they're A1 (IIRC). However, if you use communicants, which have no paths, the slaves will just take the base 17.

Generally communicants are better than mages as communion slaves.

-Max

[Trumanator]

What would be the optimal bless for the angels? I have played Pythium only rarely and don't recall what sort of stats they have. I have seen some hints that earth and nature blesses are good, but I would like to know more specifically what some different bless advantages would be.

[Agema]

Earth and nature is where it's at for Angels: regeneration is obviously useful, and reinvigoration because they do take fatigue. Earth is doubly useful because all your mages are sacred, so you get to reduce fatigue, and if (non-seraph) angels have a weakness, it's low protection, so that's also worth buffing a bit. However, they'll still be lethal enough with no bless at all. I've got a game running where I ignored bless completely, but otherwise I'd probably take something like E9N4.

[OmikronWarrior]

Originally Posted by Trumanator

What would be the optimal bless for the angels? I have played Pythium only rarely and don't recall what sort of stats they have. I have seen some hints that earth and nature blesses are good, but I would like to know more specifically what some different bless advantages would be.

The question isn't what's a good bless for angels, but should you even develop a bless strategy around angels? The answer is no. The earliest you can summon them is Conjuration-6 to get the Harbringer (A3H2 @ 25 pearls). Then you're going to want some Construction and Alteration to help them work as thugs. Angels are essentially a sideshow for Pythium (I'm actually working on a guide for them that I'll finish as soon as I wrap some games up with them). The real story and aresenal a Pythium player should focus on is Theurgs and communions, which are all sacred and benefit greatly from even a small Earth Bless (which incidently helps out Angels as well). Also, Pythium has some bad magic diversity and could really use a rainbow... and positive scales to boom with... and an awake SC for expansion... and production to build Principe with... you get the idea. I'd start with Growth-3 to keep my Theurgs alive and some Earth to revig my Communions.

On a somewhat unrelated note, does anyone have an opion on the viability of casting Thetis's blessing the same turn as numerous Arch Theurgs teleport into water provinces to take on some PD single handedly?

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by OmikronWarrior

On a somewhat unrelated note, does anyone have an opion on the viability of casting Thetis's blessing the same turn as numerous Arch Theurgs teleport into water provinces to take on some PD single handedly?

I'm thinking that if you try to tele on the same turn you cast Thetis, they'll all need water breathing items anyways, because the global hasn't succeeded yet.


As to the rest, I'd think that unless you were going with an awake pretender, you could just go a straight E9 and call it good, as far as global, full game benefit. If you wanted an awake pretender, going E4 at least should be worth it, and if you were going to do E4/N? then it may be worth pushing from N2 to N4, just to leverage the self buffing into a better bless, if you can afford it.

There are plenty of other things you can do to enhance angels (and/or sacred mages), but those are likely the two routes most applicable to MP, most others would just be fun to play with in SP a bit (like a W9/E4 or something).

Well, S9/E4 if you wanted an Imprisoned Oracle, could be a pretty cost effective and versatile MP pretender - as long as you aren't one who is highly reliant on the awake SC.

[Agema]

Agreed with Omikron.

Ultimately, you'll never be able to summon enough angels to make a bless strategy for them that useful, and MA Pythium's recruitable sacreds surely aren't worth particular effort. As Pythium's mages and troops are both very capable, you can view your SC more as a support and a rainbow is a good idea. Death, Nature, Earth are all good things to have at least skill 2 in. They're easily boosted (particularly as arch theurgs can make rings of sorc. & wiz.), and easy summons or common indy mages sort the rest out.

Fire is trickier as it's hard to boost, you might just want to wait until you can summon a seraph. I guess you can give a ring of wizardry to an arch theurg with F1 to get some searching spells going, but it would be late on and slow going. Otherwise you'd want F3.